And the Haters Gonna Hate
by kfizzlewizzle92
Summary: On the same day that she stopped by to see his concert she was also having a particularly bad day. Having some frustrations of her own to get out, she couldn't think of a better time than now to take center stage.


**A/N: Okay. I have like a million songfics that I need to do. But because of some Twitter drama that occurred today, this one is priority numero uno. For those who don't know, there were a few people on Twitter saying some very ugly things about our Austin & Ally darling, Laura Marano. Coincidentally enough, just yesterday T-Swizzle released a song about shaking off the haters. You draw the conclusions. **

**This one is for Ana for being the only one to defend me against the R5ers on Twitter today. I love you. **

**Disclaimer: I do not own A&A, Ross or Laura, R5 or Taylor Swifts lyrics.**

"Laura! What the fuck?!" Ross exclaimed rushing towards her the moment she walked into the green room backstage at R5's latest concert.

She stood in the doorway wide-eyed. Like for real, Dude? She hadn't seen him in a month and that was how he greeted her? She just came out to have a good time and honestly she was feeling so attacked right now.

Ha. Ha ha.

She quirked a perfectly shaped eyebrow at him and raised her hands in mock surrender. "Hello, Ross. Nice to see you too. I've been great, thanks for asking. How have you been?"

He didn't respond and instead pulled his phone from his back pocket and began to scroll furiously, through what she wasn't certain. Until he held the device out in front of him and she saw the familiar blue bars of a Tweet.

Oh. That.

Sighing, she didn't even have to read the Tweet to know what it said. She had already read it. Over and over again.

_Honestly if Laura died, I wouldn't mind._

It was on a constant loop in her head, like that one song that you only knew six words to but could never remember the title of. It wasn't like she wasn't used to it. She always received a ton of hate over her (nonexistent) love affair with Ross. Simply because they worked on the show together, all of his fan girls assumed that one or both of them wanted to be more than friends with the other. She wouldn't go as far as to say that she'd never thought about it. But she didn't know how she'd be able to deal with an even more copious amount of violent responses to their relationship. Plus this was the first time in a long time that the hate hadn't been through a DM.

Meaning that everyone could see it.

Meaning that Ross could see it.

She had desperately hoped he wouldn't. He was protective of her to a fault and she was certain that if he saw it he'd fly off the handle. Judging by the movement in his jaw that was clearly an angry twitch, he seemed to be barely holding on.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Oh. Oh no. He sounded so sad.

Like a…a…a sad little puppy. She just wanted to hold her sad little puppy Ross and make everything better.

_Boo you, Laura. Boo you._

She closed the two feet between them and took his hands in her own, rubbing her thumb across his knuckles and painting a reassuring smile onto her face. "Hey? I'm alright. I'm good. There were a ton of Austin & Ally fans _and_ R5 fans who jumped to my defense. Don't worry about it."

"And the R5 family?" His tone implied that he was asking a question but by his face she could tell that he already knew the answer.

"How much did you read, Ross?" She angled her head slightly to the side, scrutinizing his features to see how deep his anger went.

Letting out a huff of breath he turned away from her and ran a hand through his disheveled hair.

His stage hair, as she liked to call it.

The hair that perfectly complimented the beat up tee, worn down jeans, and scuffed converse to create his I Don't Give a Fuck look.

But hey. It worked for him.

Obviously, since all of his wannabe Rossian lovers were sending her hate mail all the time.

"I read enough. How are you not angry?" The timbre of his voice slightly increased as he asked the question and his hands flew down into the WTF position.

You know. The WTF position. It's a real thing. Google it.

She let her eyes fall to the ground before she admitted something to him that she hadn't yet admitted to herself, "I am."

"Well then what are you going to do about it, Laur?" he said in exasperation.

It hit her like a ton of bricks. It honestly did. She knew what she needed to do. Pulling her shoulders back in confidence, her voice clearly resonated through the room as she spoke. "Where's the rest of the band? I have an idea."

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

"Alright, everybody!" He yelled into his mic over the deafening roar of thousands of committed fans. They had just wrapped their set list, he was soaked through with sweat and they were scheduled to do an encore. Tonight however, he and his band mates had decided to switch it up.

"This is the part in the evening where my siblings and I, Ratliff included, would usually play an Austin & Ally song." The increased decibel level of the arena at the mention of the Disney show that he shared with Laura had him wondering just _how many_ people in his R5 family despised her. Because it seemed like all of these people were super stoked. "But I think we all decided that tonight would be a good night to switch things up. I have a very good _friend _here tonight. Some of you may know her? Laura Marano?"

It sounded like thunder was bouncing off the walls at the mention of her name.

"Well she had an incident today where some people said some not so nice things to her and I think she has some feelings that she needs to express. Come on out here, Laura!"

She jogged out into the middle of the stage with a wide smile on her face. Rocky had previously placed a mic there for her and she took hold of it to address the crowd. He tried his hardest to tear his eyes from her but she was donning some ridiculously short denim and a too revealing crop top, hidden only by a long cardigan. Which wasn't exactly her usual style.

Not that he was complaining.

He loved himself some rebellious Laura.

As a friend, of course.

"Hey, everyone!" Her voice was the perfect pitch to carry throughout the stadium. Her voice was actually the perfect everything if he was being honest. "Gah, you guys are so awesome! And speaking of awesome! This ridiculously talented band behind me, am I right?!" She threw an arm back in their direction and nodded vigorously to show her support of them. The crowd roared.

"Well, as some of you may know. Good ol' T Swizzle released a new song yesterday. Have you heard it? Yeah? It's great, right? Like Woo Hoo! Go Tay! Ya know?" His eyes almost bugged out of his head when she began to pull the cardigan off, exposing her shoulders and back. She threw it to the side of the stage, near a speaker before returning to the mic to address the audience once more, "Well, I'm gonna sing it."

He grinned triumphantly as he heard their fans scream louder than they had thus far into the night.

Because if anyone deserved it, it was her.

She shot Ratliff a dazzling smile as a cue to start playing, so he counted the rest of the band in.

His fingers found the smooth metal of his guitar strings with ease, which allowed him to simultaneously play and watch her. And as her hips swayed back and forth to the opening chords, he was immensely grateful that he could.

"_**I stay out too late**_

_**Got nothing in my brain**_

_**That's what people say.**_

_**Mmm-mmm**_

_**That's what people say**_

_** Mmm-mmm"**_

She leaned towards the audience and nodded her head with a look of conviction during the "mmm-mmms" and he could practically see the indignation that she had been holding onto seeping out of her pores.

"**I go on too many dates**

**But I can't make 'em stay**

**At least that's what people say**

**Mmm-mmm**

**That's what people say**

**Mmm-mmm"**

She chuckled humorlessly after the line about her going on too many dates, and he knew it was because she rarely ever did. He had never understand the plethora of "Slut" or "Whore" insults targeted towards her from some of his fans, because her motivation and ambition to be the best person that she could be far outweighed her desire to find a boyfriend or sleep around. That was why she had graduated from a _real _high school with a 4.2 GPA, was an ambassador for UNICEF, worked on multiple movies this year along with Austin & Ally, and had teamed up with a vegetable brand to target healthy eating towards kids. Laura was her own woman.

"_**But I just keep on cruising**_

_**Can't stop, won't stop moving**_

_**It's like I got this music**_

_**In my mind singing it's gonna be alright"**_

She had begun to saunter across the stage. Boldness flying off of her in sparks. He felt beyond lucky that he was given the opportunity to see her in this state, where she gets to perform _as _Laura. Circumstances like these were few and far between, and it appeared as though the stars had aligned for him tonight.

"_**'Cause the players gonna play, play, play, play, play**_

_**And the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate**_

_**I'm just gonna shake, shake, shake, shake, shake**_

_**Shake it off, shake it off"**_

Fun fact that not a lot of people know about Laura. She isn't a terrible dancer. She'd taken tap for a good portion of her life and could keep a beat just as much as any other well respecting teenage girl. And that was being evidenced right now. By the way she was shaking her hips. And trust him when he said that she was _shaking her hips. _

"_**Heartbreakers gonna break, break, break, break, break**_

_**And the fakers gonna fake, fake, fake, fake, fake**_

_**Baby I'm just gonna shake, shake, shake, shake, shake**_

_**Shake it off, shake it off"**_

In an impressive display of stealth she'd somehow manage to slip her newly purchased iPhone out of her pocket and open the Twitter home page. As she sung about fakers faking, she held the phone out for the spectators to see and waved it side to side to the beat of the music. Shocked by the bluntness of the maneuver, Ross made eye contact with Rydel who was grinning like a proud mama bear. It would appear as though she'd finally turned her sweet, little Laura to the dark side. Well at least the _darker_ side. Laura Marano would never be anything but sweet.

"_**Hey, hey, hey**_

_**Just think while you've been getting down and out about me being a liar and a dirty, dirty cheat of the world,**_

_**You could've been getting down to this sick beat"**_

Laura seamlessly cut into the bridge just as they had arranged it ten minutes prior to the concert starting. He'd wanted her to sing the whole song but she'd complained about not wanting to eat up too much of the bands time because (and he quoted) "they paid to see R5 and not Laura Marano." But according to the way they were cheering wildly at her improvised lyrics, he was sure that she could've done a whole set and the audience would've been more than okay with it.

"_**My ex-man brought his new girlfriend**_

_**She's like "oh my god",**_

_**I'm just gonna shake"**_

She had begun skipping towards him, and as she stood directly to his left she gestured towards his guitar at the "new girlfriend" part. Laughter tore through him as he continued to play. It had been an inside joke with the cast for as long as he could remember that his instruments were his one true love. His guitar had been his "girlfriend" since the moment they noticed that it was always with him. When she was cued to sing "I'm just gonna shake" her hips sharply thrust left and right to the beat and she turned her head towards him. The wicked gleam in her eye was distinctly apparent but he had no idea why it was there.

"_**And to the fella over there with the hella good hair**_

_**Won't you come on over baby, we can shake, shake, shake"**_

Her hand flew into his hair and he had no time to react before she was pushing her petite body into his and pulling him down for a kiss. Distantly he heard Rydel picking up the lyrics where she'd left off, the onlookers erupting in encouragement, and his own mind telling him that Disney would kill them for this. He didn't pay a scrap of attention to any of it.

Swinging his guitar to his back, he slid his arms around her waist and lifted her to deepen the kiss. It was as though something clicked in his chest. Something that said, "You may not have known you were missing anything but now you've found it and thank fucking God". Her body was radiating heat from the high of performing and as one hand slid up to the nape of her neck, he could feel the dampness of her hair from the light sheen of sweat coating her skin.

Small fingers clutched his shoulders in desperation, for what neither of them knew. Granting his tongue access to her mouth, she felt like she couldn't get close enough to him and had begun to lift her legs to wrap around his waist until she remembered their surroundings.

They were at a concert.

With 2500 spectators.

Sharing their first kiss.

Fearing of what she would do if they didn't stop now she slowly broke their kiss. Leaving her eyes closed until he set her back on the ground. "Ross, I didn't mean to-"

He cut her off with a quick kiss and smiled encouragingly, pointing towards the arena behind her.

Scared to death of what she would see, she slowly looked back over her shoulder and was met with a barrage of reassuring screams, fans with tears of joy streaming down their faces, and the flashing of cameras.

Completely ecstatic over the overwhelmingly amount of support she was receiving from the audience, she took Ross' hand and finished out the song.

"_**Shake it off, Shake it off**_

_**Shake it off, Shake it off"**_

At she ended the vocals and the band closed out the instruments, a singular tear left her eye. This experience had opened her eyes to the fact that no matter how many people had terrible, hurtful things to say about her, she'd always have a support system that far exceeded the worst that they could do.

So she was going to continue working on Austin & Ally, and recording her music, and all around being the best that she could be.

And maybe after tonight she'd have herself a handsome blonde to do it all with.


End file.
